Yesterday, the Maryland Senate Education, Health & Environmental Committee held a public hearing on several election bills. FairVote’s Right to Vote Director Adam Fogel testified in favor of two of the bills that are sponsored by Sen. Jamie Raskin (D-20): - SB 292, which will set a uniform voter registration age of 16 - SB 293, which will establish a permanent absentee ballot list.

FairVote starts a series of comprehensive blog posts about the Iraqi 2010 parliamentary elections, focusing on how Iraq has been working on building an inclusive fair voting system by relying on proportional representation (PR) instead of winner-take-all.

In the context of major distrust by British citizens of their almost 800 year-old democracy and their politicians, Gordon Brown proposed on February 2nd, in a speech at the Institute for Public Policy Research, to get rid of the UK’s “first-past-the-post” voting system.

The NPV bill had already been introduced in 2008 in Massachusetts, and despite passage in both houses, it failed to be sent to the governor before the legislative session’s end. But the NPV plan remains the best alternative to the current way we elect the president. We agree with the MetroWest Daily News: 2010 is the year to settle it!

The Japanese parliamentary elections in August 30, 2009 marked a turning point in Japan’s political history. Since 1955, Japan has been dominated by one party, with the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) as the governing party for all but 11 months. But in these elections the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) defeated the LDP, winning 308 seats to 109 for the LDP in the 480-seat House of Representatives.